A network is a collection of links and nodes (e.g., multiple computers and/or other devices connected together) arranged so that information may be passed from one part of the network to another over multiple links and through various nodes. Examples of networks include the Internet, the public switched telephone network, the global Telex network, computer networks (e.g., an intranet, an extranet, a local-area network, or a wide-area network), wired networks, and wireless networks.
The Internet is a worldwide network of computers and computer networks arranged to allow the easy and robust exchange of information between computer users. Hundreds of millions of people around the world have access to computers connected to the Internet via Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Content providers place multimedia information (e.g., text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and other forms of data) at specific locations on the Internet referred to as webpages. Websites comprise a collection of connected, or otherwise related, webpages. The combination of all the websites and their corresponding webpages on the Internet is generally known as the World Wide Web (WWW) or simply the Web.
Prevalent on the Web are multimedia websites, some of which may offer and sell goods and services to individuals and organizations. Websites may consist of a single webpage, but typically consist of multiple interconnected and related webpages. Websites, unless extremely large and complex or have unusual traffic demands, typically reside on a single server and are prepared and maintained by a single individual or entity. Menus and links may be used to move between different webpages within the website or to move to a different website as is known in the art. The interconnectivity of webpages enabled by the Internet can make it difficult for Internet users to tell where one website ends and another begins.
Websites may be created using HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to generate a standard set of tags that define how the webpages for the website are to be displayed. Users of the Internet may access content providers' websites using software known as an Internet browser, such as MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER or MOZILLA FIREFOX. After the browser has located the desired webpage, it requests and receives information from the webpage, typically in the form of an HTML document, and then displays the webpage content for the user. The user then may view other webpages at the same website or move to an entirely different website using the browser.
Browsers are able to locate specific websites because each website, resource, and computer on the Internet has a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. Presently, there are two standards for IP addresses. The older IP address standard, often called IP Version 4 (IPv4), is a 32-bit binary number, which is typically shown in dotted decimal notation, where four 8-bit bytes are separated by a dot from each other (e.g., 64.202.167.32). The notation is used to improve human readability. The newer IP address standard, often called IP Version 6 (IPv6) or Next Generation Internet Protocol (IPng), is a 128-bit binary number. The standard human readable notation for IPv6 addresses presents the address as eight 16-bit hexadecimal words, each separated by a colon (e.g., 2EDC:BA98:0332:0000:CF8A:000C:2154:7313).
IP addresses, however, even in human readable notation, are difficult for people to remember and use. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is much easier to remember and may be used to point to any computer, directory, or file on the Internet. A browser is able to access a website on the Internet through the use of a URL. The URL may include a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) request combined with the website's Internet address, also known as the website's domain name. An example of a URL with a HTTP request and domain name is: http://www.companyname.com. In this example, the “http” identifies the URL as a HTTP request and the “companyname.com” is the domain name.
Domain names are much easier to remember and use than their corresponding IP addresses. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approves some Generic Top-Level Domains (gTLD) and delegates the responsibility to a particular organization (a “registry”) for maintaining an authoritative source for the registered domain names within a TLD and their corresponding IP addresses. For certain TLDs (e.g., .biz, .info, .name, and .org) the registry is also the authoritative source for contact information related to the domain name and is referred to as a “thick” registry. For other TLDs (e.g., .com and .net) only the domain name, registrar identification, and name server information is stored within the registry, and a registrar is the authoritative source for the contact information related to the domain name. Such registries are referred to as “thin” registries. Most gTLDs are organized through a central domain name Shared Registration System (SRS) based on their TLD.
For Internet users and businesses alike, the Internet continues to be increasingly valuable. More people use the Web for everyday tasks, from social networking, shopping, banking, and paying bills to consuming media and entertainment. E-commerce is growing, with businesses delivering more services and content across the Internet, communicating and collaborating online, and inventing new ways to connect with each other.
Some Internet users, typically those that are larger and more sophisticated, may provide their own hardware, software, and connections to the Internet. But many Internet users either do not have the resources available or do not want to create and maintain the infrastructure necessary to host their own websites. To assist such individuals (or entities), hosting companies exist that offer website hosting services. These hosting providers typically provide the hardware, software, and electronic communication means necessary to connect multiple websites to the Internet. A single hosting provider may literally host thousands of websites on one or more hosting servers.
Hosting providers often sell website hosting services based upon the content provider's anticipated memory and bandwidth needs. For example, a content provider may pay a lower monthly fee for 100 gigabytes (GB) of server disk space and 1000 GB of bandwidth than another content provider whose website may require 500 GB and 5000 GB of server disk space and bandwidth, respectively. Content providers must carefully evaluate their website's anticipated storage and bandwidth needs and select their hosting plan accordingly. If they underestimate their needs, their website may become non-functional once their memory and/or bandwidth allotment is exceeded.
Even a carefully-executed website load analysis, however, can greatly underestimate website traffic (and therefore CPU and/or bandwidth usage) if the website becomes unexpectedly popular amongst Internet users, or perhaps becomes the subject of a “denial-of-service attack” (a potentially-malicious attempt to make a computer resource unavailable to its intended users). Such unexpected traffic spikes have become increasingly common due to the recent proliferation of community-driven content aggregation and bookmarking online services, such as www.digg.com, www.del.icio.us, and www.reddit.com.
With such aggregation services, news stories and/or other online content are submitted by users, and then promoted to the service's front webpage through a user-based ranking system along with links to the original website. Thus, if a website catches the attention of Internet users and gets linked to such an aggregation service, traffic (and therefore bandwidth load) may suddenly spike and exceed the website's memory and/or bandwidth allotment. If the website is hosted on a “full” server (i.e., the server's memory and bandwidth are already allocated to other demands), the website may become non-functional. Furthermore, due to the nature of shared hosting (e.g., multiple websites hosted on the same server), a website generating a large amount of traffic may hinder the performance of other's websites hosted on the same server.
Applicant has noticed that presently-existing systems and methods do not provide website hosting customers with adequate protection against the risks associated with such unexpected website traffic. For the foregoing reasons, there is a need for the systems and methods for providing website hosting overage protection and related functionality as described herein.